In Which Henry Plays Kingdom Hearts
by Ayoshen
Summary: and Regina Does Not Approve. Nothing more to it.


**A/N: **This is what happens when playing these games forms up to 76% of my summer. English is not my native language and I apologize in advance for any grammatical and/or spelling errors.**  
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**In Which Henry Plays Kingdom Hearts and Regina Does Not Approve**

"This game is feeding you nothing but a bunch of infantile lies!"

"Oh come on, mom!"

Well shit. So much for keeping this a secret. This was precisely what Emma had, now unsuccessfully, been hoping to prevent. She quickly closed the door behind her, shrugged off her jacket, sprinted a few steps - before realizing Regina allows neither running in the house nor clothing on the carpet - backtracked, put the jacket on the hanger and burst into the living room in proper Mills manner.

What she saw there more or less corresponded to the mental image; Regina sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, a cup of tea in her hand, shooting a disapproving glare at the TV screen, while Henry sat cross-legged next to her (his shoes were on the floor, of course), entirely too focused on the game to argue with his mother properly, instead button-mashing the controller like an enraged baboon on steroids as he fought Ursula the sea witch. "I told you to play at Nicholas and Ava's house!" Emma hissed, earning herself a mayoral glare of her own.

"You knew about this?"

"Maybe," Emma shrugged. It was crucial Regina never knew about the fact that it was Emma who'd bought him the damned game in the first place, in vain hopes of getting his mind off Operation Cobra and getting him to view fairytales the way everyone else does - as fairytales.

"Their TV is much smaller," Henry piped in as if that was the one fundamental part of a blossoming friendship in the 21st century - they must have a big screen, otherwise it's a no-no.

The sea witch groaned and the screen shook with a violent earthquake by the name of victory, sending a bright smile spreading across the boy's face. "Made it!"

Having watched his previous six attempts fail miserably, Regina could only snort. "Oh, please. I happen to have had several audiences with Ursula and I must assure you she is much more attractive than this cartoony blob of pixellated misery. Neither does she fancy purple, if the decor in her… _dwelling_ has any say in it. The only historically accurate part of this is that at least she put up quite a fight."

"Momma, say something! She's ruining the game," Henry whined as he sank a little deeper into his spot on the couch. He had been listening for close to two hours to the events of Kingdom Hearts as retold by his mother dearest, including the part where Peter Pan had always and every time summoned the alligator to haunt poor Captain Hook, Pinocchio did not have brown hair and Ariel had committed suicide after not being able to reunite with her prince - a feat Regina explained with nothing but scorn. And Tarzan? The whole idea was a myth, a mere modification of a story passed on from parent to child in the fairytale kingdom. "And she only lets me use fire spells! How was I supposed to defeat Ursula like that?"

"All kinds of magic have potential, but any decent wizard knows fire rules them all, Henry," Regina justified in a dead serious tone.

Emma buried her head in her hands. This was never supposed to happen. Rewriting the past once is bad enough, but bringing it back up? Lord have mercy. "Don't you think you're being overly dramatic? It's just a game, Regina," Emma appeased, making a motion with her arms vaguely reminiscent of a zookeeper trying to calm an African lion.

Regina's back straightened, but all Emma could see was a cat arching its own. Her brain instantly took the liberty of supplying the necessary auditory background of feline hissing. "A pack of lies! You should have seen what they did to Maleficent. Ridiculous! There was much more depth than that to Maleficent, and all my life I've met few wiser individuals," her wife growled as her tone adopted an unforeseen trait; was that a hint of respect or high regard, maybe?

Uh-oh, Emma had forgotten about that. Regina never took kindly to even speaking of Maleficent. Obviously there had been something there, but Emma never probed to find out exactly what, especially after her rather unfortunate rendez-vous with the witch. She didn't want to wake the dragon, so to speak.

"And Belle! As much as I don't like the real one, the one in this what you call game is a spineless tool. She retained nothing of her image's assertiveness."

"But that's the way she is in the movie!" Henry cried, exhausted by this meaningless conversation. Trying to explain Kingdom Hearts to adults was like perpetual motion machine; a beautiful ideal, and entirely unachievable. But everyone needs to try it once to be sure.

Regina's eyebrows rose up to her hairline. "There are animated movies about us, too? Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Shit.


End file.
